All living things communicate to some degree.

At the most fundamental level communication has something to do with survival, "The food is here" or "It's time to make babies". The higher the level of society, the more complex the communication. Sentences such as, "The Chateaubriand at Blues is really excellent" or, "A university degree in economics is a pre-requisite in the lucrative financial consultancy world" communicate extremely complex and abstract concepts. But at any level, communication is only successful if it is clear. The message a male cockroach gets from the female sex pheromone odour is in no way ambiguous, but the words that we humans use very often are.

One of the reasons is that words, especially in English, often have different meanings for different people and can be used in different roles. We all know that nouns name things, places or concepts (cat, Durban, patience), that adjectives tell us something about nouns (blue sky, happy face) and that verbs are actions or descriptions of states (go, remember, have) but there's plenty of room for ambiguity. A simple word like round can play the role of a noun, verb, adjective, adverb or a preposition:

You bought the drinks last time; now it?s my round. (noun)
The tiger suddenly rounded on its trainer. (verb)
The world is round. (adjective)
He looked round, but still couldn?t see if he was being followed. (adverb)
The Countess showed me round the house herself (preposition)

If we are to communicate clearly, and in honest business communication there is no need for obfuscation, then we need to know our Ps and Qs as well as to mind them. Clear communication is the key to success. After all, cockroaches are said to be able to survive nuclear holocaust.

Groups of words

Knowing our Ps and Qs is one thing. Stringing them together so that they mean what we want them to mean is quite another.

Groups of words vary in length and can be named according to characteristics. A phrase is a group of words without a finite verb. A fragment is a phrase that begins with a capital and ends with a full stop. A clause contains a verb but lacks the initial capital and full stop and a sentence is identified by having all three. Sentences arranged together to convey an idea form a paragraph. All of these groups of words need to have signals and spaces within and between them to successfully convey the speaker or writer's message. And those signals and spaces are called punctuation.

Punctuation

Imagine driving in a city without traffic signals. Punctuation marks are the traffic signals of our writing.

Question marks signal a query, exclamation marks some sort of emphasis. Inverted commas identify a person's spoken words and the apostrophe indicates possession. Spaces between words grow from the shortest, indicated by the comma, to the longest, shown by the full stop, with the semi colon and colon in between. Some of them have other functions as well: lead into a statement by preceding it with a colon. Know how to use punctuation. Misuse can alter the entire meaning of a sentence.

Gerrie said he had shot himself as a young man.

Gerrie said he had shot, himself, as a young man.

Grammar

How we use our words says as much about us as the clothes that we wear. Make a good impression!

Grammar is the set of rules that make a language work but those rules change and experts often disagree on them. Some common grammatical errors are verbs not 'agreeing' with subjects: the cats sits on the mat, the use of 'I' and 'me': Jane and me found a dead seal on the beach, and the misuse of 'that and 'which': the taxi which nearly hit us at the robots.

Spelling

Mercifully, some genius invented spell-check and as we all write on computers these days, it's not the problem that it used to be.

Annoyingly, there are spelling mistakes that sneak by the Spellchecker because it doesn't know what you want to say. I practice the piano for an hour every day. We are lucky to have a vet's practise down the road from our house. A principle is in charge of a school but a principal is a moral belief. "The spelling and grammar check is complete" Huh!!

All this sounds like a minefield of possible error but it is worth getting it right. If you are stumped by which word, punctuation mark or sentence structure to use, remember that many of these problems, like income tax, can be avoided. Just say it differently. You can always rephrase your way out of a grammatical quandary.

?Hmmm? I need this to be as frightening as possible ? how would a lawyer phrase it?"

The UCT Business Writing and Legal Documents Course is a new part-time course presented by Getsmarter in conjunction with the Professional Education Project of the Faculty of Law (UCT Law@Work) at University of Cape Town.

The 2nd presentation is due to start in August 2009 and 185 students throughout South Africa have recently completed the first presentation of this course, achieving an 85 percent pass rate.

Need for the course:

The need for effective writing skills in the business environment is critical to organisations and their employees. From the writing of e-mails, memos, letters, proposal, reports, meeting agendas, minutes and business plans to the understanding of various legal documents, effective writing and formatting skills are critical to our daily business functions.

The Course in a Nutshell:

Part-time 10 ?week course conducted via the internet
Will provide students with a refresher in parts of speech, punctuation, grammar, spelling and style and then deal with the challenges of writing effective business documents, such as e-mails, memos, letters, proposal, reports, meeting agendas, notices, minutes, corporate CVs as well as business plans
Will also provide students with a comprehensive understanding of legal documents, such as employment contracts, sales contracts, mortgage bonds, lease agreements, summons and wills
Students receive continuous administrative assistance from the course coordinator as well as academic assistance from the course convenor
Approximate study hours per week: 3 - 7 hours /week

Who should attend?

Working professionals and anyone who deals with English in a business context or wishes to improve their English writing skills and/or understand legal documents.

What is Getsmarter?

Getsmarter is a training firm that works together with South Africa?s top Universities and industry experts to make first-class continuing education possible for working professionals throughout South Africa and abroad.

Course dates:

Registration Dates:

14th of August 2009

Course Begins:

24th of August 2009

Contact:

Deborah on 021 683 3633 or Deborah@getsmarter.co.za or click here.

Course fee is R5358 including VAT.

One lucky reader will get to enrol into the course absolutely free, courtesy of Getsmarter and business@iafrica.com.

Article is written by Anton Kelly, the course convenor of the UCT Business Writing and Legal Documents Course.